- 16-disc set (Kind Hearts and Coronets, The
Ladykillers, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Man in
the White Suit, The Magnet, Passport to Pimlico,
The Titfield Thunderbolt, Whisky Galore,
Champagne Charlie, Dead of Night, The Maggie,
Scott of the Antarctic, Nicholas Nickleby, Went
the Day Well, Hue and Cry and It Always Rains on
a Sunday) R2 UK - Optimum Home Entertainment

STRATEGIES:
The best way to take full advantage of Amazon is to use PRE-ORDERs
- lock in at the discount price by ORDERING - if perchance you
decide against the purchase you have until the release date to
cancel - at no charge.

AND if you will purchase
more than 35 DVDs (or anything) in a 365 day period (and live in
the Continental US) it makes excellent financial sense to
subscribe to Amazon Prime! You will get Free 2-day
shipping on your purchases!

RECOMMENDATIONS: I feel that
the big release this week is Eureka - Masters of Cinema's PAL edition of the De
Sica's masterpiece Shoeshine
- the image, although imperfect - reaches Criterion levels, as do the extensive
extras and commentary - amazing job lads! I'd say for fans of the style - that
Kino's packaged Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood
is a great purchase even if you already own 3 of the 5 releases - I enjoyed each
of the films in that set regardless of the poor state of most of the transfers.
Speaking of Film NoirCarol Reed's Odd Man Out
(new Network R2 edition) is an essential for me - far better than his The Third Man. When Craig Keller talks
- we usually listen and he is as high as a kite on Serge Gainsbourg, d'autres nouvelles des étoiles.
If it sounds up your alley - indulge. Blade Runner
fans have been patient for almost a decade - the new REMASTERED edition may only
be a stopgap approach till the extended comes out, but I'm glad I have mine
(spun twice in the past week). Buñuel
fans can rejoice - the R2 The Exterminating Angel
- simultaneously joins an R4 release of the same desirable film. Bela Tarr fans
can also be happy with Almanac of Fall
- a Facets release that is not an abominable transfer!

I GOT IT AND YOU DON'T DEPT. -
Our review of a VHS dub to DVDR of The Blue Dahlia
is an attempt to get the Universal off their collective cans.

MIGHT WANT TO PASS - Mediocre Bogie may still suffice for some with
Tokyo Joe. 50's sci-fi fans see Target Earth start out like a house on fire
- but the unfortunately it doesn't maintain - but on the positive the DVD is
cheap and has a decent commentary.

Blade Runner -
(Beaver examines the new remastered release vs.
the old edition) One of the most visually influential science
fiction films ever made, Blade Runner has a
history as labyrinthine as any of its futuristic
film noir sets. A fascinatingly contemplative
detective story about a world-weary
android-killer and his renegade prey, it has
attracted a sizeable cult audience and retains a
unique place in cinema. DVD Release Date:
September 4th, 2006

Shoeshine is widely regarded as one
of the finest films to have emerged from the
Italian neorealist cinema. It was also the first
foreign film to receive an Oscar. "The high
quality of this motion picture," noted the
Academy, "brought to eloquent life in a country
scarred by war, is proof to the world that the
creative spirit can triumph over adversity."
DVD Release Date: September 25th, 2006

United 93-
Oftentimes, we are haunted by a powerful movie’s
first and final images. United 93 is no
exception. The last sequence involving the
passengers’ counter-attack against the
terrorists was really the free world’s first
strike against fundamentalist terrorists. The
passengers’ collective action was our collective
refusal to be cowed by criminals who aren’t
afraid of die. In the face of fatalistic
determinism, the strongest response is the will
to live. Still, I was stunned by the ending’s
forceful finality.

After the Wedding
- Since “The one and only”, Susanne Bier has
been the darling of Danish cinema, but she made
a transition as director with “Open Hearts” and
moved from the shadow of a light but the most
successful Danish romantic comedy in years,
towards a darker and more serious approach to
love, which she followed up with “Brothers” and
now “After the Wedding”.

Target Earth - Nora (Kathleen Crowley) wakes in
a deserted city. With increasing horror, she
discovers the extent of her predicament. Someone
- something - has caused a panic during her
unconsciousness, emptying the streets and
causing all essential services to be cut off. As
she explores the results outside with increasing
trepidation, and in some genuinely eerie scenes
(shot without permit on the early morning
streets of L.A.) the viewer shares in her
growing concern.

Serge Gainsbourg, d'autres nouvelles des étoiles
- This greatest of songwriters -- a man who
deserves to be counted among the greatest of all
the twentieth-century's artists -- remade the
universe over and over again. There are no
Plutos in his oeuvre, and as such I can't give
Universal's nearly 5-hour-long release anything
other than cinqs étoiles des étoiles.

The Blue Dahlia - Sterling film noir from the
pen of Raymond Chandler. Alan Ladd stars as a
war veteran framed for the murder of his own
wife. Veronica Lake plays the requisite femme
fatale. The Blue Dahlia is smartly plotted and
unpredictable enough to keep the killer's
identity a secret. Classy stuff.

Almanac of Fall - In his first three films Bela
Tarr--conceivably the most important Eastern
European filmmaker currently working--betrays an
impatience with cinematic style, focusing almost
exclusively on content, but that tendency was
radically overturned with this 1984 feature,
whose taste and intelligence are specifically
(and exquisitely) cinematic and revealed Tarr as
a master stylist. Set entirely in an apartment
inhabited by an elderly woman, her son, his
former teacher, the old woman's nurse, and the
nurse's lover, the film consists mainly of
intense two-part dialogues and encounters
largely concerned with the old woman's money.
DVD Release Date: July 25th, 2006

Tokyo Joe - Not every Humphrey Bogart film is a
winner, though most are at least watchable.
"Tokyo Joe" falls into the latter category. In
this 1949 effort from director Stuart Heisler
("The Glass Key") Bogart plays a World War II
hero who returns to postwar Japan to reclaim the
life and wife he had long believed dead.

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Hollywood - The five
films brought together in Kino's new specially
priced box set are Noir at its most exemplary.
Though boasting stars like Joan Crawford and
Henry Fonda and helmed by renowned directors,
these five films are B movies in the best sense
of the term: tight, raw and cannily devoid of
gloss. Masters of the genre such as Budd Boetticher, Anthony Mann and the expatriated
Fritz Lang are captured here in fine form, as
are some of the greatest directors of black and
white photography in the business. DVD
Release Date: September 12th, 2006

Odd Man Out - Director Carol Reed's most
ambitious and accomplished film, Odd Man Out
stars James Mason as Johnny McQueen, leader of
an IRA gang forced into taking on a bank raid in
order to raise funds for the organization. It's
a tense time and it shows: the hold-up doesn't
exactly go as planned. Unable to cope with the
demands of the situation, McQueen kills a man
and then falls from the speeding getaway car.
Badly wounded, he manages to scramble into
hiding and we are invited to follow his
desperate progress as he clings to life. the new
Network PAL edition is compared to existing
releases. The Network PALDVD Release
Date was August 28th, 2006

Samaria (Samaritan Girl) - Awarded the Silver
Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for best
direction, and being one of the films in the
race for Best Film, "Samaria" is allegory
questioning both moral and sin. Divided into
three chapters: “Vasumitra” deals with the
friendship between Jae-Young and Yeo-Ji,
“Samaria” deals with Yeo-Ji’s reaction to the
death of her best friend and the final chapter,
“Sonata”, concludes. The TartanDVD
Release Date was August 21st, 2006

The Exterminating Angel - In Mexico some rich
folk are inexplicably invited to a dinner party
at “Calle de la Providencia” - a mansion. As the
night progresses it becomes apparent that they
are all incapable of leaving the house. A
message of idle rich dependency is the subtext.
With the servants outside they no contact with
them what becomes apparent is the hollowness and
pettiness of the bourgeois lifestyle. Buñuel
champions the exposure of the aristocratic
*lack* of nobility for those who have more
wealth than sense and have lost any touch with
reality and a value structure. DVD Release
Date: August 28th, 2006

The Sun Also Rises - This visual magnificence,
in CinemaScope and color, frames a picturesque
cast, headed by Tyrone Power, Ava Gardner and
Mel Ferrer, that looks hand-picked down to the
last bit "extra." Director Henry King has staged
a personalized, handsome big "show," from Peter
Viertel's admirably faithful script, which
slices a few corners and minor characters from
the source. While the result is emotionally
intriguing, rather than powerful, it remains,
nevertheless, Hemingway all the way. DVD
Release Date: August 28th, 2006

The Blue Lamp - Introducing PC George Dixon
(Warner), charged with showing new boy Andy
Mitchell (Hanley) the ropes. There is helping
old ladies and giving directions, until the film
takes a darker turn when Dixon is killed in a
raid on a cinema. The killer (a great turn from
young Bogarde) is presented as part of a new
breed of post-war criminals, without a code or
honour, and even the respectable criminals want
to help the police track him down. DVD
Release Date: August 21st, 2006

The Devil and Daniel Johnston - To open a film
with the statement about Daniel Johnston, as
“…the greatest singer-songwriter alive today.”
Both is bold and provocative, especially since
few ever heard about him. But during the film,
it becomes clear, that there may be some truth
in that statement, especially after one learns
about the contract Elektra drew up for him,
where they didn’t demand either success, touring
or public appearances, nor would pressure him
for material, and would secure him with any
medical help he would need. At the same time,
the insanity of Daniel Johnston is visual via
this contract, as while Elektra basically
offered him money for the rest of his life,
asking nothing of him than he continued to do
what he already did, he turned it down, as they
also managed Metallica, and hence he saw them as
advocates for the devil. DVD Release Date:
August 21st, 2006

Mountain Patrol - The movie is also noteworthy
in and of itself--it is a stunning, devastating
tale about workaholics who defend the
environment not out of idealism but because of a
hard-bitten sense of ethics. Yet, strangely, the
protagonists’ modus operandi IS a kind of
idealism, one of action rather than of talk
(i.e. bullshit). Movies like Kekexili feel real
rather than manufactured because you see people
who are so busy doing what needs to be done that
they have no time for the swaggering and the
posturing that so-called “heroes” in American
movies exhibit (Miami Vice comes to mind).
DVD Release Date: August 29th 2006

Rollin With The Nines - Fearing production
falling thru, brothers Julian and Will Gilbey
chose 100% private financing, thus “Rollin’ with
the Nines” is a low-budget film. Production wise
it is visible. Most dialogue scenes are single
set few actors, with minimum production values,
common for low-budget productions. But don’t be
fooled by this element. “Rollin’ with the nines”
is quiet a good gangster film, and had it had a
million pound budget and more professional
actors, it would have been recognized as such by
more. “Rollin’ with the nines” may be a
low-budget amateur film, but its story and
action really sucks you in. DVD Release Date:
August 21st, 2006